Community to get chance to embrace PNC Field

Here's the thing I don't know if the Scran- ton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees front office ever quite understood when it came to their always-tumultuous relationship with fans: It was never just about the experience at a Yankees game.

Clearly, that experience ranked somewhere between laughable and downright pathetic through the years. In 2007, longtime Red Barons fans arrived at the ballpark to find no sign that their team ever existed in the ballpark, and they basically were just told to forget about the past. In 2008, when turf issues arose and games were postponed on sunny days in the middle of summer, fans weren't given full refunds. In 2009, fans looked at the promotional schedules and found stunningly little on it. So, in 2010 and 2011, fans responded by not showing up, then questioning whether pouring money into a refurbished ballpark was hopeless anyway.

But I always thought the seeds for that discontent and disconnect were planted long before anybody had anything to complain about on the field or in the seats.

I've thought a lot about this over the past few months, and mostly because of Rob Crain.

Granted, they've largely been brushed over by the press, if not because they weren't interesting, but because they've been overshadowed by much more important things going on with the franchise. But the president and general manager of the Scranton/ Wilkes-Barre RailRiders had made passing references since he took over his post last summer about making PNC Field more available to the public.

On a tour of the construction site in late October, Crain walked by the steel frame that will soon be the suite level, pointing into as-yet-unfinished rooms and saying that he someday envisioned a group of guys having their fantasy football drafts there.

After he announced the franchise's new name in November, he mentioned his hopes that, someday soon, fans would be able to come to PNC Field to watch a high school football game - maybe even a high school all-star game of some kind.

By no means are these novel ideas, and Crain hasn't tried to pass them off as such. These are things that happen at pretty much every nice new minor league stadium that is built. But it does bring two interesting points to the forefront:

1.) These aren't things that happened at the old PNC Field since the Yankees arrived in town and Mandalay Baseball took over management.

2.) With $43.3 million going into the renovation of a stadium still owned by the taxpayers, why in the world shouldn't they be?

"It has more to do with the fact that this is the community's ballpark," Crain said. "And it needs to be used.

"Certainly, there is a business opportunity there, but that's almost secondary to us wanting to use the ballpark and share it with the community."

Growing up, the highlight of my summers traditionally wound up being the baseball games I'd get to play at Lackawanna County Stadium. Some of the best high school football playoff games I've ever covered as a reporter happened there. I remember the days when falling down seemed to hurt less and ice skating on a rink constructed in right field during the winter months seemed like a great way to pass a Friday night.

Baseball was meant to be played on natural grass, no doubt. But someone decided you couldn't have natural grass and the Lackawanna County Multi-Purpose Stadium any longer, emphasis on Multi-Purpose. Outside of the poorly attended Yankees games and a few District 2 baseball playoff games every season, PNC Field seemed to have no purpose.

"When I got here, I said one of my main goals was to make PNC Field the front porch of the community," Crain said. "And that means doing a lot more than 72 RailRiders games."

Of course, that will be easier to do in a lot of ways. Crain said he envisions wedding receptions, holiday parties, bar mitzvahs and family reunions being held on the suite level, no matter the time of year. Which is great. And, also, easy.

Imagine having your bar mitzvah in the dingy, old party box in right field at PNC Field, pre-renovation. The new stadium will be state-of-the-art, cleaner, nicer than the old one. People will want to have events there.

Drawing more fans into the stadium to see events outside of the RailRiders will be the big key here. Have more football games. Have some baseball playoffs. Crain has designs on all of it, but enacting those plans will be critical.

There's no way that we'll see PNC Field become that front porch of the community in just one season. It will take time to get there, to realize where the full potential of having one of the best minor-league ballparks in the country lies. But the RailRiders and their management have to search for it.

Nobody debates this is the community's ballpark. The community has to be given plenty of opportunities to embrace it again.

Contact the writer: dcollins@timesshamrock.com

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